I know, I’m totally fucking shocked too. I only had every symptom in the list and an entire lifetime of my mother telling me to get checked for it, because she’s had it since her 2nd pregnancy and it’s hereditary. Who would have guessed?

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, fer fuck’s sake, finally, I might start feeling better.

On the other hand, I’m going to be on medication for the rest of my life. This lack of pro-active diagnosis has probably totally screwed my chances of ever conceiving a second child. Do you really have to wait until my thyroid is completely destroyed by my own body before you can do anything about it?

I’m kind of bitter right now.

But I’m looking forward to being able to lose weight and stay up past 8pm.

Still, bitter.

Medication is better than feeling crappy.

Bitter, though. Big pile of medication for a 37-year-old.

Feeling a little gloaty about being proven right.

Feeling a little bitter about having to bully the medical system in to proving me right.

I think it might take me a while to work through this.

I tell you that I'm going to write more (whether it's good or not) and then I disappear for a week. I know, I know.

It's this mythical "Life Balance" thing. Have you heard of this elusive unicorn? I thought I had actually achieved a reasonable approximation of it. Or at least as close as you can get without cloning. I was all like, I have a great job and a reasonable amount of energy and I'm exercising and eating ok and my house is not a total biohazard (no more so than usual) and I'm scheduling time to blog. I even have time to read a book or two!

Then I realized I hadn't exchanged more than 3 words with Alfred in days, and my kid thought Bob the Builder was going to be the one showing up at parent-teacher interviews.

Okay. Well, I can massage that all in. I'll just move this workout and skip doing the dishes, and have takeout ONE day a week, it's not much to sacrifice to spend quality time with my family.

Oh, and my friends. Right. I should spend time with them too. Okay, so I'll skip a workout and go out for lunch with them, and spend some time on the phone instead of blogging.

Wait. That was the whole point. Also, what about those two committees I volunteered for? I sort of forgot about them.

OKAY. So I'll move the workout, skip the dishes, eat takeout TWO days a week, make some phone calls and stay up a little later. Eating nachos.

And....you see how this goes. You KNOW how this goes.

I don't think it's a Life Balance. I don't buy that anymore. I think it's a Life Rotation. This week I am a stellar exerciser but a crappy parent. Next week I am a junk food eater but a great friend. The week after I'll have an immaculate house and be avoiding emails asking why I haven't completed my responsibilities.

I wonder when I get to be a fantastic astronaut and a terrible surgeon? That will be fun.

Where do you strike YOUR balance?

I can hear you laughing from here - because obviously I don't take myself seriously at ALL. What I mean is, I will stress less about whether the post is actually GOOD. I mean, I will try to make it good. For you guys. But sometimes, well, it's just going to be what's going on in my brain. Except in post form.

So regarding the first pledge, I bought a little keyboard dock for my tablet and told myself I'd go off on Sunday afternoons and sit in a coffee shop somewhere and blog. That hasn't happened yet. I mean, it's Sunday afternoon, and I'm sitting in front of my teeny keyboard attempting to blog, but I'm in my kitchen. It's cold out there and I don't feel like buying a $5 coffee shop calorie-fest.

Seriously, this keyboard is REALLY fucking small and annoying to type on. Seems like I'm doing okay with the "mental vomit" part of my resolution. So that's the deal. You may see more of me, it may not be that good. Or maybe you won't, and it will. Or! Maybe you won't, and it STILL won't be that good.

Actually, that seems likely.

Aren't you glad I share these things with you?

Waaaaaayyyyy down.

Bump.

Bumpity bump.

BUMP.

Ahem.

How about that local sports team? Read any good books lately? Or…to be actually interesting, how about the Spin Cycle (now hosted by the lovely & talented Gretchen)? The topic is “dreams”.

Now, I dream fairly vividly (except when I was pregnant, which is pretty much the opposite experience of every other pregnant woman ever to have lived), so I could tell you some good ones. But nobody is ever interested in your dreams except for you, I know this. Unless they are trying to get into your pants, they are only being polite when they smile and nod as you say exuberantly, “And then George Takei walked in with my afternoon delivery of bumper stickers!”.

So I’m going to take a different approach and tell you a little anecdote.

Do you have a dream kitchen? Dream closet? Dream wedding? Dream vacation?

I don’t. I guess I’m easy to please, because I’ve never spent time deciding on what my ideal version of any of those things would be. As long as my kitchen is somewhat clean, my closet somewhat full, and I get to leave the country, I’m happy with any format. (And I’ll probably never get actually married, because, HOLY CRAP IS THAT A LOT OF WORK.)

But I realized just recently that I do have a dream house.

Sort of.

I had a (reasonably rare) date night with Alfred, who I am going to continue to call Alfred because it suits him better than Paul, and as Nicki pointed out, Paul is not a Batman reference. During our (actual, uninterrupted) conversation, he mentioned what kind of house he thought we should buy if we won the lottery.

“No way,” I said. “If we win the lottery I want to build a house that has a big library, and spiral staircases, and hidden passageways.”

“The kind that lead to paintings with eyeholes that you can spy through?”

“Exactly. And a graveyard in the back, and a greenhouse full of thorns but no roses. And we’d have to train our foliage to attack the mailman.”

He squeezed my hand. “It’s moments like this that remind me that I picked the right woman to spend the rest of my life with.”

I beamed. Exactly.

And if not, there’s always that graveyard.

What do you think? Should I go with naughty?

Or bitchy? (Which…isn’t that far off from naughty. Apparently my repertoire is not as diverse as I’d like to think.)

Photos are courtesy of the amazingly talented Rob Vida.

Bout photos next month. Maybe. If I get benchmarked and I’m not too maimed and I’m not drooling through my mouthguard or losing major clothing. There’s a lot of Ifs in there, probably you should just forget I mentioned it.

But, I also got a wicked job with co-workers that I love. Alfred got a Day Job, so we’re on the same schedule and no longer have to communicate an entire day’s worth of angst in the 20 minutes before he starts an evening shift. I discovered a new passion in roller derby.

So how bad can an upcoming year that an ancient and mystical race prophesized would be the End of the World be?

Bring it on, Mayans.

Now I’m rather offended that none of you care enough to wear my skin.

Well, it’s the holidays. You’re busy. I understand. I’m busy myself, I’ve had to cut back on taste-testing my Christmas baking to 5 times per batch instead of the usual 12.

So, speaking of saving time, here’s a volatile subject that is sure to incite flame wars in my comments section: do you single-space or double-space after a period?

See, I am old enough to have been trained in the double-space method. It was ingrained. Then I read this article on Slate about how single-space is the accepted method these days, double-space went out with manual typewriters and the dodo. Somehow, without really thinking about it, I converted to the single-space method. I didn’t actually notice that was the case until a co-worker called me on it.

I’m guessing my inherent laziness probably took over and seized on that one less keystroke with glee. Think of all the energy I’m saving without that extra thumb twitch!

Anyway, what’s your take on it? Neither method really has a solid argument behind it, other than “everybody else is doing it”. Which isn’t a particularly good argument, considering it seems like it’s about 50/50 to me. Are you a single-space cowboy or a traditional double-spacer?

“You know, you can call me Paul on your blog.”

“…you don’t like ‘Alfred’?”

“No, it’s not that, I’ve just gotten over it.”

“Gotten over…what?”

“I’ve gotten over someone potentially finding out where we live and ax murdering us.”

“That was a thing? You just told me you didn’t like it when I talked about you on my blog. So I don’t.”

“Well, I’m over it.”

“Because you no longer think one of my blog readers is going to visit our home and ax murder us.”

“Right. So you can use my real name.”

“…”

Well, you heard him, guys. Get us while his guard is down. Make sure the ax is sharp.

On the other hand, I might just be as lazy as usual.

***

I feel like drawing again lately. If I use a sketching app to draw a model from a photo on the internet, is that a) pointless, b) meta, or c) Artistic with a capital A?

***

Speaking of faux artistic, I realized that I have 4 or 5 photo apps on my phone. You?

***

We have a photo shoot for our “derby personas” this weekend. I’ll be sure to show you the terrifying results. Any suggestions on what the fuck I should wear?

***

CAKESICLES.

***

I don’t like the lighting now that the computer is upstairs. It makes my hands on the keyboard look like they belong to the CryptKeeper.

***

I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.  I think I’ll take some programming courses. Where should I start?

***

My four-year-old just tiptoed out and asked what that “annoying computer sound” was. Apparently I am typing too loudly for his Highness. Laters.

I don't want to turn this into one of these "woe is me" blogs, and also I'm writing this laying on the floor. So here are the Cliffs Notes.

1. I'm on the floor because I tweaked my back yesterday morning getting my kid out of the car. Sitting, leaning, and now walking are extremely painful.

2. Last Thursday, I spent the night in ER because my gall bladder tried to kill me. (Interesting side note: it took 6 hours in emerg to get seen and diagnosed. Twitter diagnosed me of this errant gall bladder in under an hour, and OVER A YEAR AGO. Conclusion: fuck the ER, we need to work on getting Twitter the ability to prescribe meds.)

3. The extensive bloodwork the gyno did came back with very high levels of thyroid antibodies, which usually indicates an autoimmune disease like Graves or Hashimoto's. My mother has Hashimito's, and yet this doctor is the first person to test for it.

TL;DR version: Apparently I have "best before age 37" stamped somewhere.

ANYWAY. Fuck you, whoever is sticking pins in my voodoo doll, because I still have an adorable kid, Alfred, friends who would help me move a body AND hang out in the ER with me til 3am, a kickass job, family, and pie.

Also, a prescription for morphine that they gave me at the ER.

(Take THAT.)

 I'll be back soon with something cheerier, or at the very least weirder.